"...if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10). (Council of Orange: Canon 6)

Contributors

We are a community of confessing believers who love the gospel of Jesus Christ, affirm the Biblical and Christ-exalting truths of the Reformation such as the five solas, the doctrines of grace, monergistic regeneration, and the redemptive historical approach to interpreting the Scriptures.

Essential Theology

"Dead Men Cannot Hate"

Here is a failed attempt to demonstrate that the Reformed view of (unregenerate) man being dead is illogical.

Visitor: A dead man can not walk to an emergency room but neither does a dead man hate.

Response: I believe you may have missed the point. The Bible teaches that those who are dead to spiritual things are quite alive to sin and the flesh. The Bible teaches there are two kinds of people in the world 1) spiritual and 2) natural. The natural person cannot understand spiritual truth and by nature thinks it is folly and is therefore hostile to it (1 Cor 2:14, Rom 8:7). He is completely dead to it - beyond his native moral capacity. The apostle says a person needs the mind of Christ to understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2:12). Otherwise they just continue on in their love of darkness (John 3:19, 20) So the dead in sin (the spiritually dead) are those in the state or condition without the Holy Spirit. This is a fact which is quite prevalent in the Bible... that is, unless you want to claim (against Scripture) that a person can come to faith in Jesus Christ apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.

In another place Jesus even says of them, "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." - John 8:44

Essentially Jesus is here saying to them, "Like father, like son. Like the devil they have no truth in them and lie because that is what they do by nature."

Next Jesus says to them, "Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” John 8: 46-47

In other words, the reason they do not hear the truth and do not hear God is that they are spawn of the devil. They are not God's children so It is not in their nature to hear spiritual truth. Their ear only hears the things which oppose God. i.e. they are Dead to spiritual things but alive to sin.

But Jesus shows the only way some escape from slavery....In the same passage Jesus said to them,

“Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father. - John 8:34-38

Man is naturally a slave to sin. He commits sin and cannot do otherwise. Only a work of grace, apart from their assistance or cooperation, can set them free from slavery and adopt them into God's family. Those born of God are children of God.